Oldenburg, Germany

Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany After the Black Death persecutions of 1348-49, no Jews settled there for over 400 years. Down to the Napoleonic era, only one Jewish family was permitted to live and trade in Oldenburg. The community then grew from 27 to 80 between 1807 and 1827, and established a district rabbinate. District rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch (1830-1841) laid the foundations of Neo-Orthodoxy. Heinrich Grätz, the future Jewish historian, lived in Oldenburg between 1837-40. Under Grand Duke Paul Friedrich August’s tolerant rule, the community prospered. The Neo-Orthodox religious direction was reversed after Hirsch was succeeded by Bernhard Wechsler (1841-74), a radical reformer who officiated at the first mixed marriage after Jewish emancipation (1849). R. David Mannheim however, before assuming office in 1891, insisted on the restoration of Orthodox worship. Old Liberal families, objecting to his religious stand, left the community. Cattle traders from East Friesland and the Netherland, retired couples, and immigrant Jews from Eastern Europe (Ostjuden) were absorbed by the community, which grew from 169 in 1876 to 265 in 1905 and 320 at its peak in 1925. During the Weimar Republic, most Jews continued to trade in cattle, meat and farm produce, or owned stores. Antisemitism was combated b the Central Union (C.V.) and the Jewish War Veterans Association (RjF). From April 1933, boycott measures succeeded in ruining or “Aryanizing” local Jewish firms. By the end of 1935, 100 persons were receiving aid from the community’s Winter Relief Fund. New Zionist and cultural groups were founded in 1934-36 as violence, persecution and racial discrimination drove many Jews from the city. On Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938), SA units burned the synagogue and school, demolished stores and conducted mass arrests throughout the region. Over 30 Jewish residents were transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Of the 279 registered in 1933, at least 272 managed to emigrate. Those who moved to other German cities (and some who fled to Holland) as well as the remaining Jews were finally deported to the Nazi concentration camp or ghettos in 1941-42. The postwar Jewish community numbered 150 in 1997, two-thirds from the Soviet Union.